News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-09-08
A BOSTON CLERGYMAN.
The Parson was Right, and the Boys
are Better for it,
GFrom the Boston Transcript. |


There is one of our churches sit won't
! do, for reasons of State, to tell which
church it is-that has an entryway or
vestibule, with flight of stone steps,
which is found very convenient by small
street urchins, newsboys and the like to
rest in, to gossip in, to fall asleep in
sometimes, and-horrible to relate-to
crack peanuts in. The litter of shells
left by this Juvenile congregation was
the occasion Of terror and disgust to the
hOnOred sexton of the church, a person
OF rather set notions, who proceeded to
take the necessary steps to clear the
vest1bule of the nuisance, driving the
boys away and warning them with dire
threats never to come again.
1t happened, however, to the sexton s
great astonishment, that the pastor.
showed a disposition to side with the,
boys. He liked to think of the church
over which he ministered providing a
safe harbor, with nothing in it of evil
influence or suggestion, for these human
waits. Somehow the old church seemed
to be III his mind fulfilling the purpose
for which it was designed when it Shell
tered from the wind the street boys with
its old walls in the winter, or cooled ands
rested their hot and weary bodies with
its dark stones in the summer The
minister talked to them sometimes, and
they felt that their resorting there gave
him sort of friendly hold upon them.
So he protested with the sexton.
Couldn't you come around once in q
while after the boys have been there and
sweep the steps OFF," the pastor ven
tured to ask
Sweep the steps off for the benefit of
those young hoodlums? The sexton
managed to restrain his emotions, but
with difficulty. No; he thought it would
be quite impossible for him to keep the
steps clear of the rubbish that those
boys left there. It was too much to ask,
and as- the matter was, the condition of
the steps was frequently scandal to the
church. He proposed that q railing OF
some other means be provided that
would effectually shut out the interlo-
pers.
It was the minister's turn to be stub
born. He intimated that the boys
should have a chance to come there as
long as heremained pastor of the church.
He asserted his authority. The sexton
appealed from the decision of the pastor
to the Governing Committee of the
church. There the matter was argued,
and, in spite of the pastors appeal in
the boys behalf and his insistance that
their habit of resorting to the church
steps might give him an opportunity to
do much good, the committee thought
more of the church steps than they did
of the boys, and decided the dispute in
the sections favor, instructing him to
drive the boys away and take the neces-
sary steps to keep them away.
Then there was ministerial crisis
right away. The pastor appealed the
matter to the church. A meeting was
held, and the question considered i'll all
its bearings. The pastor pleaded the
case with tears in his eyes, and certainly
with humanityin his heart, He carried
the day, and was triumphantly sustained
by the church. And now, it is said, you
may find plenty of boys almost any day
around the steps of the church,
resting and gossiping, but few peanut
shells. As the minister's particular
friends they do not betray his confidence
n them.